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T O P I C R E V I E W

Robert Pearlman

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recently released its draft environmental assessment (PDF) for issuing an experimental permit to SpaceX for operation of the company's DragonFly reusable launch vehicle (RLV) at the company's test site in McGregor Texas. The document provides some insight into the test flights that SpaceX plans to qualify its Dragon V2 propulsive landing modes.

The DragonFly RLV is the Dragon capsule with an integrated trunk (which may or may not be attached during a DragonFly operation) and up to four steel landing legs...

The DragonFly RLV weighs approximately 14,000 pounds (lbs) un‐fueled, with a height of 17 ft and a base width of 13 ft. Each pair of SuperDraco engines (eight total engines) are mounted to a monolithic aluminum bracket. This bracket is connected to the pressure vessel with three mounts.

The propulsion system uses a nitrogen tetroxide (NTO) and monomethylhydrazine (MMH) propellant combination. The amount of propellant for each type of operation varies and is discussed further in Section 2.1.1.1, Proposed Operations. The DragonFly RLV has a maximum operational propellant load of approximately 400 gallons; however, the propellant loads would be different depending on the test type.

SpaceX has proposed four types of operations (test) with the DragonFly RLV:

Propulsive Assist - Drop the RLV from a helicopter from up to 10,000 ft, deploy parachutes and land with SuperDraco engines; engines would fire for 5 seconds

Full Propulsive Landing - Drop the RLV from a helicopter from up to 10,000 ft and land only with SuperDraco engines (no parachute); engines would fire for 5 seconds

Propulsive Assist Hopping - RLV takes off from launch pad and lands with parachutes; engines would fire for 25 seconds